A `Straight Shooter` Who Deplored Guns

The note taped to the refrigerator door of their suburban house said that the coffee was made, that she loved him and, at the bottom, just to be sure, ``Don`t forget your guns!``

Lu Walsh, married to first-grade Detective Michael Walsh, left earlier for her job as a teacher. Now, Mike Walsh obediently stood in the kitchen with three guns, wrapped in plastic.

At 60, Mike Walsh is a short, trim man with a somber face who speaks softly. He appears fit to work for many more years, but an auto accident ripped his shoulder and causes immobilizing pain in his neck. He wore a dark blue suit for his retirement at police headquarters in Manhattan, an act that requires the signing of pension papers and the surrender of badge and all guns.

``Where did I meet you the first time?`` I asked.

``I was in a candy store someplace leaning over a body and I looked up and you were in the place. I told you to get out.``

``When was that?`` I asked him.

``I don`t know. So many bodies over the years. They all come together in my mind.``

``How many homicides have you been around?``

He thought. ``Over 15 years? I know we had about 2,000 of them come into the office. That`s not to say I worked on every one of them. But I always had a homicide. That was my line of work.``

HE ONLY USED HIS GUNS THREE TIMES

He stuffed the three guns into a canvas bag. ``I only used them three times,`` he said. ``Once out in the street a guy aimed at us from a block away and shot. We returned the fire. Never hit him. The second time, I was in a courtyard and I had my gun out and a burglar jumped out of a window. He had a gun in his hand and he landed right in front of me. I fired at him. Didn`t hit him, but I apprehended him. The third time, there was a mugger and there were shots fired and we didn`t hit him but we apprehended him.``

``You went through a whole career and never shot anybody?`` he was asked.

``Thank God,`` Mike Walsh said.

``How?``

``Show authority right away. Let them know you`re the police. That usually does it. The tone of your voice puts them under arrest more than using handcuffs. I look him right in the eye and I drop my voice. Then I say, just like this: `I`m a police officer, right. You`re under arrest.`

``I don`t even know why I have them (guns).``

His son, Eugene, who has been a cop for three years, came up from the basement with Mike Walsh`s scrapbook, which was thin and contained only a few clips. When you do it the way Mike Walsh did, do it honorably and do it every day for 39 years, and without too much to say, a scrapbook is an embarrassment.

He picked up the car keys and left. ``The first day I went to work was in 1948. I took home $100 every two weeks. I was afraid of only one thing: When Stan Musial came to Ebbets Field.``

A half-hour later, in Manhattan, Mike arrived at police headquarters.

A LIFETIME GETS STUFFED IN A BOX

In the Pension Service Retirements office on the 11th floor, a man in civilian clothes had Mike fill out forms at a desk. Then the man said, ``All right, you take the elevator back on the left side here, take it to C level, then turn in your helmet and Mace. Sign it off on this and then go to the property clerk and turn in your guns. Finish that, go to the 10th floor, turn in your shield and come back here.``

He entered an old, crowded office. ``Hi, guys, Mike Walsh.``

He signed forms, put the guns on the desk and left. For the first time in 39 years he didn`t have a gun under his jacket. Upstairs, he went to a window, where a clerk chewed gum. Mike put the gold shield, in a black leather holder, on the counter. The clerk picked up the shield and looked at it without speaking. It was a pawnshop scene. The clerk couldn`t get the badge out.

``Been in there so long it won`t come out,`` Mike said.

There was a sound and the clerk had the shield out and he pushed the old holder at Mike. The clerk turned and put badge 956 in a box.

Mike Walsh turned and walked away, with no gun under his jacket, with no badge in his right pocket and with his career of 39 years in a box in an office where the clerk chewed gum.